


This Is the Worst Party Ever

by feverbeats



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-21
Updated: 2010-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cobb squints disgruntledly at Arthur. "It's Halloween. It's a party."</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is the Worst Party Ever

"What _is_ that?"

Cobb sighs. "It's a skeleton, Arthur. You've seen those before, right?"

Arthur narrows his eyes at the monstrosity sitting in one of the lawn chairs in the middle of the Chicago warehouse. "It's not a _real_ skeleton. I've seen plenty of real skeletons, and that isn't one."

"Well, that's not unbelievably creepy or anything," Ariadne says.

Arthur turns to look at her. "Why is there blood on you? What's going on?"

Cobb squints disgruntledly at Arthur. "It's Halloween. It's a party." Nothing about his grim tone suggests "party" to Arthur.

Equally grim is Ariadne's outfit, which seems to involve some sort of toga, red yarn wrapped around her neck, and a great deal of what smells like plastic and looks like blood.

She glares at him. "It's Minotaur blood. So I took a few liberties. You don't have to get so—"

"No," Arthur says levelly, "I'm not the one getting _so_. This is just completely unprofessional. Is that fake spider-web in the corner?"

"No, I think that might be real spider-web," Ariadne says.

Arthur takes deep, calming breaths. "Is there anyone here who hasn't gone completely insane?" He feels for his die in his pocket.

"I've never in my life celebrated Halloween," Yusuf calls from his desk. "Although I don't object to Ariadne's yarn scarf."

Ariadne goes a little pink. "Oh."

"Nor have I celebrated Halloween," Saito agrees. He's flipping through Arthur's carefully-prepared brief and looking bored.

"Oh, God," Cobb says, covering his face. "I've been culturally insensitive. Mal always warned me about that."

"I would be more than happy to explain the Japanese equivalent," Saito says smoothly. "Potentially over coffee."

Arthur would really prefer not working with hormonal teenagers all the time. He gives the lawn chair and its skeleton a vicious kick and makes it to his desk without getting burned by the smoldering glances everyone is tossing each other.

On his desk, there's a bowl of candy corns.

He grits his teeth. "Move this."

Cobb sighs. "It wouldn't kill you to be happy once in a while. I've even been trying it lately."

Arthur wants to suggest that he would be about a thousand times happier if they could work with a real team again and not these crazy people who are bleeding fake blood all over the warehouse floor and leaving candy on his desk. Instead, he says, "Can't you do the Halloween stuff with the kids tonight?"

"But Halloween is an all-day holiday!"

Arthur knew someone was missing before. He turns to find Eames leaning on the doorframe, clad in the most hideous dress he'd ever seen outside of a movie from three decades ago.

"What," Arthur says. "Just. What."

Eames sashays—that is exactly the word—over to Arthur, looking positively enchanted with himself. He's even in _heels_ , God. "It's Halloween," he says in a startlingly good approximation of a female timber. "Give us a kiss."

"In your dreams," Arthur says automatically. "Which I know this is _not_ , because you're not pulling the dress off well."

To Arthur's eternal annoyance and confusion, Eames actually looks vaguely hurt. "I even shaved my legs."

Arthur glances. "Mm. So I see. Well, nice effort. What are you supposed to be, anyway?"

Eames gives him a laugh that's entirely faked, and worse, Arthur can tell it is. "I see you've chosen to be a colossal ass for Halloween. I don't see how anyone's expected to tell the difference."

Arthur flattens his mouth into expression number 187, _extremely unamused_. "I'm just more interested in getting the job done than your—shenanigans."

He catches Eames' look of delight before he turns back to his desk. All right, so he's a little flustered. It's not every day Eames comes in looking like that, which means exactly nothing. Except that Arthur's annoyed.

Every time, it happens like that. He probably should have learned by now, but it hasn't stopped being interesting, so he lets it continue. _It_ being situations that begin with Eames doing something completely absurd and end with Eames under him in bed, on the floor, or up against a wall.

He clears his throat deliberately. "I don't even like candy corns, Eames."

"What makes you think I left them there?" Eames asks, but he sounds pleased. "I've only just come in."

"Well," Arthur says, smiling down at the candies that he honestly _does_ hate, "The only other person who might harass me like this is Ariadne, and there's a suspicious absence of fake blood on my desk."

"I think she was busy with her thread, anyway," Yusuf says. He seems to have gotten his hands tangled in it, and there's a smudge of fake blood on his cheek. Arthur can't turn his back for a second in this place without people being—

Eames has wrapped his arms around Arthur from behind.

"What," Arthur says again. "Jesus, what the hell, what is wrong with you people? You're like adolescents."

"Do you truly loathe my outfit?" Eames asks. He's asking in earnest, and Arthur gets a little thrill out of being the only one in the room to know this.

"You're being. Unprofessional," Arthur manages. But he can already see where this night is going. He tries not to think too hard about pushing up that dress and—

Well, he's just not going to think about it.

"I'm going to eat candy corns off your naked body later," Eames whispers in his ear.

Arthur bats him away. "You've effectively killed my desire to have sex with anyone ever again, Miss Eames."

Eames' face lights up with that weird, childish delight, and Arthur feels slightly vindicated.


End file.
